Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Although no single weather-related event can be atributed to climate change, New
York City has experienced climate extremes in its recent history that have brought at-
tention to the potential risks posed by climate change to the city's critical infrastructure.
Recent extreme climate-related events include Hurricane Irene in August of 2011 which
caused the City for the first time to implement its storm surge evacuation plan and as-
sociated risk reduction planning activities on a broad scale (e.g., shuting down the pub-
lic transit system). While the storm surge flooding was not much as expected, the City
agencies were able to test their emergency planning protocols. Other recent weather
extremes include the summers of 2010 and 2011 that were exceedingly hot and stormy.
The summer of 2011 was particularly intense - July was one of the hotest months on
record for New York City; while August was one of the wetest. These events and oth-
ers which resulted in large social and economic costs provide valuable insights into the
impacts that climate change could have in the future. They also highlight the need, even
without climate change, to improve the city's resilience to environmental stressors, of
which climate extremes are one of the most important. In many cases, linking adapta-
tion efforts to the climate risks faced by the city today is an effective adaptation strat-
egy. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg created the Office of Long-Term Planning
and Sustainability in 2006, with the goal of developing a comprehensive plan to create
a greener, more sustainable city. Mitigating climate change were central goals of the
City's comprehensive sustainability plan, PlaNYC 2030, released in 2007. The PlaNYC
work was expanded to include climate change adaptation in response to the importance
of doing both climate change mitigation and adaptation simultaneously to protect the
citizens and infrastructure of the City. An immediate goal of PlaNYC was the creation
of an interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force to protect the city's vital in-
frastructure in the face of a changing climate. The charge of the Task Force created in
2008 was to identify climate change risks and opportunities for the city's critical infra-
structure and to develop coordinated adaptation strategies to address these risks. The
Task Force 3 consisted of approximately 40 city, state, and federal agencies, regional
public authorities, and private companies that operate, maintain, or regulate critical in-
frastructure in the region related to energy , transportation, water and waste, natural re-
sources, and communications. To support the Task Force, the City convened a group of
climate change and impact scientists, and legal, insurance, and risk management experts
as the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) to advise the City on climate
change science, potential impacts, and adaptation pathways specific to the city's critical
infrastructure.
The NPCC consists of climate change and impacts scientists, and legal, insurance,
and risk management experts and serves as the technical advisory body. It was designed
to function in an objective manner similar to the role that the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) plays on an international stage for nation-states. The work of
the NPCC is to ensure that the city's adaptation efforts are based on sound science and
a thorough understanding of climate change, its potential impacts, and adaptation. To
assist the City, the NPCC has analyzed climate change hazards, studied impacts on the
critical infrastructure of New York City, and developed a risk management framework
for adaptation planning, which, in turn, contributed to the development of the City's
climate change adaptation planning framework.
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